xiii, 952 pages : 26 cm

From the Publisher: From the evolution of Homo sapiens to the exploration of space, the vast landscape of human history appears in J.M. Roberts's History of the World. Deftly written and evocatively illustrated, this book offers an outstanding one-volume survey of the major events, developments, and personalities of the known past. In a truly remarkable work of compression and synthesis, Roberts sweeps through thousands of years of history, weaving the stories of empires, arts, religion, economics, and science into his lucid narrative. Beginning with the early hominids, he swiftly and authoritatively brings the story up through the emergence of Mesopotamian civilizations and ancient Egypt. Here, too, is comprehensive coverage of the Indian and Chinese civilizations ("For two and a half thousand years," he points out, "there has been a Chinese nation using a Chinese language"), as well as developments in Africa and South America. Aided by photographs of key archaeological finds (such as monumental Egyptian statues, Peruvian medallions, and Celtic jewelry), Roberts clearly explains the early arts, engineering, and religion. He also carefully ties in changing economics-such as trade routes and developments in agriculture and manufacturing-making clear their importance for the history of politics and changing societies. The story leaps ahead, through the Roman Empire, the explosive arrival of Islam, the rise and fall of samurai rule in Japan, the medieval kingdoms of sub-Saharan Africa, the Mongol conquests, and the early modern expansion of Europe across the globe. American independence, the French Revolution, the colonial empires, Japan's startling modernization, and the World Wars follow in turn, accompanied by discussions of scientific and technical breakthroughs. With informative maps, photographs, and reproductions of important artwork (some in full color), Roberts clearly explains the impact of the key individuals and the major influences on history the world over, down to the era of an integrated global economy and the fall of the U.S.S.R. Vividly written and beautifully illustrated, History of the World offers the finest, most readable one-volume survey available today

Includes index

List of maps -- Preface -- Book 1: Before History-Beginnings -- Introduction -- 1: Foundations -- 2: Homo sapiens -- 3: Possibility of civilization -- Book 2: First Civilizations -- Introduction -- 1: Early civilized life -- 2: Ancient Mesopotamia -- 3: Ancient Egypt -- 4: Intruders and invaders: the Dark ages of the Ancient Near East -- Complicating world -- Early civilized life in the Aegean -- Near East in the ages of confusion -- 5: Beginnings of civilization in Eastern Asia -- Ancient India -- Ancient China -- 6: Other worlds of the ancient past -- 7: End of the old world -- Book 3: Classical Mediterranean -- Introduction -- 1: Roots of one world -- 2: Greeks -- 3: Greek civilization -- 4: Hellenistic world -- 5: Rome -- 6: Roman achievement -- 7: Jewry and the coming of Christianity -- 8: Waning of the classical West -- 9: Elements of a future -- Book 4: Age Of Diverging Traditions -- Introduction -- 1: Islam and the re-making of the Near East -- 2: Arab empires -- 3: Byzantium and its sphere -- 4: Disputed legacies of the Near East -- 5: Making of Europe -- 6: India -- 7: Imperial China -- 8: Japan -- 9: Worlds apart -- 10: Europe: the first revolution -- Church -- Principalities and powers -- Working and living -- 11: New limits, new horizons -- Europe looks outward -- European mind -- Book 5: Making Of The European Age -- Introduction -- 1: New kind of society: early modern Europe -- 2: Authority and its challengers -- 3: New World of great powers -- 4: Europe's assault on the world -- 5: World history's new shape -- 6: Ideas old and new -- Book 6: Great Acceleration -- Introduction -- 1: Long-term change -- 2: Political change in an age of revolution -- 3: Political change: a new Europe -- 4: Political change: the Anglo-Saxon world -- 5: European world hegemony -- 6: European imperialism and imperial rule -- 7: Asia's response to a Europeanizing world -- Book 7: End Of The European's World -- Introduction -- 1: Strains in the system -- 2: Era of the First World War -- 3: New Asia in the making -- 4: Ottoman heritage and the Western Islamic lands -- 5: Second World War -- 6: Shaping of a new world -- Book 8: Latest Age -- Introduction -- 1: Perspectives -- Population changes -- Plenty -- Management of nature -- Ideas, Attitude, Authority -- 2: Politics of the new World -- Cold war beginnings -- Asian revolution -- Inheritors of empire: the Middle East and Africa -- Latin America -- 3: Crumbling certainties -- Superpower difficulties -- Two Europes -- New challenges to the Cold war world order -- 4: End of an era -- Epilogue: In the light of history -- Index

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